Metal messiah

"The time of deliverance has come at last," cried New Era, an American spiritualist newssheet, in July 1854. It was hailing the "birth" of the New Motive Power, a miraculous mechanical device described by its 50-year-old "father" John Murray Spear as "Heaven's Last Gift to Man" and the "New Messiah".

Spear, an ardent spiritualist and fervent abolitionist, was in psychic contact with the "Band of Electricizers" a committee of scientifically-minded spirits headed by Benjamin Franklin. As well as plans for an improved sewing machine, an electric boat and an intercontinental telepathic network, the group showed him how to boost signals to the spirit world by covering himself in copper and zinc batteries. Their tip worked and he was soon downloading blueprints for the New Messiah.

A child-sized anthropomorphic marvel, the New Motive Engine had steel arms and spheres, zinc and copper plates for its brain, antennae to draw power from the skies, a chest of wires, bars, chemicals and magnets and earthing rods for legs. Its construction, at High Rock, outside Lynn, Massachusetts, took nine months, during which time Spear was assisted by New Era's editor and "the Mary of the New Dispensation", thought to be Mrs Spear.

As the machine neared completion, Spear, wearing a suit of gemstones and metal strips, entered a deep trance and created a psychic "umbilical" link to his creation. The New Mary declared herself pregnant and, on June 29 1854, lay next to the machine for two hours, overcome by labour pains. When these ended she laid hands on the robot-child, which, according to those present, began to move like a feeble newborn.

There was some debate among the witnesses as to what this movement consisted of, but it was soon decided that a change of air would boost its spirits. Unfortunately, after being relocated to Randolph, New York, the machine, according to local legend, was destroyed by an angry mob. There are no surviving records of its violent demise.

Spear himself moved on, his mechanical child seemingly forgotten, and progenated a human child with a new wife, the women's rights activist Caroline Hinckley. At the spirits' behest he developed a controversial doctrine of female emancipation, communal living and free love which he preached until instructed (by the spirits) to retire in 1872.